


Moments In Time

by frontierpodiatrist



Category: Rune Factory (Video Games), Rune Factory 4
Genre: Best Friends, Crying, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Established Relationship, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Grief/Mourning, Interspecies Relationship(s), Interspecies Romance, Kids, Kissing, Love Confessions, Minor Character Death, Near Death Experience, Sibling Bonding, Stargazing, Tags Added By Chapter, Unspecified Love Interest
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2019-01-05
Packaged: 2019-01-21 14:43:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,779
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12459933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frontierpodiatrist/pseuds/frontierpodiatrist
Summary: Who can fault a simple spirit living in a box for falling in love?





	1. seeing without eyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Who can fault a simple spirit living in a box for falling in love?

Eliza is an it.

Eliza is an object, stationary.

Eliza opens a mouth that should not speak.

Eliza is an anomaly, something that shouldn’t exist.

Eliza can’t breathe, not like people can, but it can feel.

And oh god, does it feel. Beauty is incomprehensible, especially so to an inanimate object that has never had the opportunity to see first hand what is beautiful, but Eliza cannot help but feel as if Frey is beautiful. Eliza cannot tell you what is beauty, what defines it, what it means to people, to humans, to anyone, but if anyone or anything is beautiful it is Frey. She is boundless energy, a blur of green to the outside world, to the eyes that Eliza should not have. On the days of festivals, when they are all gathered in the plaza, the other residents are always happier when she arrives. She greets the other girls with a bright smile and a cheerful hello, listening to their conversation with the same attentiveness she applies to everything she does. When she wins the festival ( regardless of what it is ) Eliza has never seen anyone be surprised. The group of boys that gather in a circle afterward look to her reverently, as something unattainable, as something to be admired. It is a feeling that is relatable, Eliza thinks.

Days come and go, and with them so does the princess of the castle. Frey visits often, always smiling, asking questions, providing the only company Eliza has come to know and probably ever will know. She is a force to be reckoned with, consistently flying in and out of town with more scars and cuts lining her back and legs than there were when she left. She brings people back, once, twice, three times, carrying them on her back as if they were the weight of feathers. Eliza watches this all, it is the only thing Eliza can do. Watch. 

Eliza watches when Frey learns the news of Ventuswills’ soon to be passing, as she wails a desperate plea, as she follows something only she can see to the forest beyond Selphia. 

Eliza watches as Doug becomes distant, when Frey approaches him he is silent and solemn.

Eliza watches when Ventuswill comes back into town with a blur of green upon her back. 

Eliza watches when the Sechs soldier comes into the plaza, defying the laws of nature by taking the form of a dragon. 

Eliza watches when Frey leaves, her eyes more hardened and cold than ever before, shoulders squared up for a fight. 

Eliza watches when she returns, relief and happiness present in the whole village’s faces as they celebrate their victory.

Eliza watches when Frey emerges from the castle room, a face streaked with tears, knowing she has to break the news to the rest of the town.

And Eliza watches when Frey brings Ventuswill back.

They talk when Frey has the time to linger, has the time to take a moment, as short as it is. Frey asks many questions, curious by Eliza’s existence, but no more curious than Eliza is. Not all questions have answers. Sometimes, though, Eliza can make one. So it becomes a she (by Frey’s preference). The feeling of being human never comes closer than it does then. Through all this, Frey takes every request that comes her way. Until there are no more. Well, there’s still the everyday requests for monster slaying, and deliveries, any menial favour. 

But there’s nothing of special importance left to be done. The fear that Frey may stop talking to her is so overwhelming Eliza almost feels a heart beating inside her, rapid and skipping over itself. Yet Frey doesn’t. Even when Eliza tells her “Well done,” and “I’m really, really glad I got to meet you,” churning out sentences sounding so much like finality. Frey says “thank you,” and starts up another conversation as if it didn’t even happen. Asking her why she took the name Eliza, if it was a decision or if it was her name from before she could remember, if it was given. And well, the story is a bit boring, that she simply took the name from a tourist, but Frey listens anyway, as if it were the most interesting story in the world.

Seasons pass slowly for Eliza, whose only event of every day is when Frey talks to her, or someone drops by with a request or mail. The only way to pass the time is people watching. Watching, watching, watching. And she notices a couple of things. Of all the people in the village, the boys all love Frey. She has many suitors, but in all the time Eliza has known and seen her pass by, she has never given a single one of them an ounce of interest romantically. In fact, she has never seen Frey show interest in anyone. Except, perhaps, Eliza herself. This thought comes across her many times, and every time she brushes it off, because well, who could love a bunch of pieces of wood with a dumb feathered hat.

“Eliza! Good morning!”

Sometimes, Eliza finds, she thinks for so long the day blends into the next. It is always a shock when it does. “Good morning, here are the requests for the day,” she says it automatically, even if it’s not what Frey is looking for. “I’ll pass on the requests, thanks, I just wanted to talk with you.” Eliza would be blushing if she could. “H-Hm, what is it?”

“Well, you know how you said you were from something called the Sharance Tree?” Frey swings her arms behind her back as she talks, rocking back and forth against the wind. “Well, I’m sure you’ve seen Raven around, long red hair, sort of broody. She’s from Sharance, a mountain city she told me, so I asked her about the tree. She showed me to these binoculars at the edge of the town that were towards the tree in Sharance and it’s  _ huge.  _ I can’t believe you came from that! But it’s really beautiful! Raven told me it grows bigger and more vibrant the stronger the relationships are between humans and monsters, isn’t that amazing? You came from something so cool, Eliza!”

Frey’s voice comes out happy and clear, and whatever reply Eliza thought to come up with is gone. It’s not like hearing her laugh is rare, but for some reason, this strikes her. Eliza was never particularly interested in herself, her history, simply accepting things as they were. Even now, the information isn’t that interesting to her, she doesn’t think she’s very impressive on her own. To think Frey would be so happy for Eliza, so excited to find out something new about her, it’s sort of maddening, in its’ own way. She wishes she had a face, then, to smile at Frey, to laugh with her and crinkle her nose back. That she had laughter lines and dimples, glistening teeth that shone in the sunlight. Wishes she had hands to hold Frey’s with, arms to hold her, a mouth to kiss. Eliza wishes a lot of things. She wishes so much she forgets to reply, stagnant and quiet silence stretching between them until Frey begins to think she’s said something wrong. “Eliza? Is everything okay? Did I get too nosy?”

“No! I’m sorry, I was simply lost in thought.”

“About what?” Frey leans in, looking into Eliza’s eyes, two holes cut into a shabby wooden box. “What are you thinking about?”

“Well, I . . . oh, I suppose there’s no point not saying anything. I was wondering how you remembered that.”

Frey doesn’t miss a beat. “Because I like you, Eliza. I want to know everything about you, you know?”

Eliza gets the distinct feeling this is what choking feels like. “Wh-wh-wh . . . you like me? Wh . . . how? Why? I’m just a . . . box. I’m not even a person, I-I don’t have a heart, I don’t have a body or a brain. I’m just, well, I don’t even know what I am. You can’t _like_ a concept of what could have been a person. You have so many people in Selphia that already love you but you chose a mailbox? **Really**? I don’t . . . I don’t understand.”

“Oh,  _ Eliza, _ ” Frey says her name achingly, like it hurts her, and reaches out a hand to the side of her head. “You’re not a concept or anything like that, you’re a person. You’re a person just the same as me. Just because you don’t have a body doesn’t mean you can’t feel. I mean, you can feel this, can’t you? Or you can feel confused, like you are now. I didn’t choose anyone to love, it just happened to be you. I think you’re adorable, funny, and so giving. And I like your hat. Even if you don’t. I think it’s sort of funny looking in a cute way.”

If she could, Eliza thinks she might be crying.

“ . . . It really is a dumb hat,” she says. “I like you, as well.”

Frey grins what can only be described as knowingly, “I could tell.” Eliza thinks she might have been embarrassed if this conversation had gone differently, but now all she can feel is fondness. “Can I hug you?” Frey asks. Eliza tries to nod somewhere deep in her consciousness and thinks maybe her hat shifts forward a fourth of an inch. “Yes,” she says instead.

“You know, were you thinking about anything else before?” Frey’s arms wrap around her, and though the position is clunky and awkward with their conflicting shapes, it’s comforting. Eliza concedes. “I was thinking about having a body. So I could hold you and your hand, and . . . kiss you.” There isn’t any sort of response afterward and Eliza starts experiencing anxiety, she only just got her feelings reciprocated and she’s already gone and messed it all up. But then Frey moves, kisses the top of her box shaped head. “Well, you don’t really have anything like hands, so I guess a hug will have to do. Just because you don’t have a body doesn’t mean I can’t kiss or hold you, besides who knows, maybe I could get you a body. I’ve already brought four people back from a monster form what’s to say earthmates can’t give people bodies,” she laughs, running her fingers down Eliza’s head. “Stop that, you’ll get splinters.” She doesn’t stop. “Someone could walk in at any moment and see you embracing the request box and then you’ll earn the title of town loon,” she says it like a complaint but well, it’s more an attempt to hide her bashfulness than anything else. “Add it to my many other ones. Princess, master, idiot, klutz . . . might as well add town loon to the bunch,” she laughs again, fingers feeling the felt around Elizas’ shoulders. Eliza can’t breathe, not like people can, but she can feel. And she feels warmth.


	2. World Renown Artist RAINBOW Extraordinaire, The Genius & Beautiful Daria

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Daria receives a letter from her sister about a topic she herself isn't so versed in.

She wakes up just as the sun is beginning to rise, filtering in through the window by her bedside. The first thing on her mind is to feed the thing living in her toolbox, because when she leans over the bed to blindly grab for her hammer inside it bites her for the third time this week. She doesn’t know what it is or how it got in there (and she’s tried naming it but it doesn’t seem to enjoy that very much; she can’t see why because Teethy is an apt description) but it’s been a couple years and it hasn’t died or left yet so she’d like to think they’re friends at the very least. And it doesn’t chew on the knick knacks she keeps in there, so they’ve got a good pattern going. At least it didn’t _use_ to, but when she looks more closely at her hammer there’s little indents on the hilt. “You little . . . ! Didn’t your mother ever teach you not to meddle with other people’s things?! I let you stay in there and this is how you - ”

Knock, knock. “Hello? Daria, are you in?” 

“Yup! Door’s open!” She gives the toolbox one last glare and a quick “this isn’t over,” spiel before Shara steps inside with a bouquet and a letter. “Good morning! I brought you some fire flowers - oh, are you alright? You’re bleeding!” She crosses the room in four quick strides to gently pull Daria’s hand (it bit her dominant hand, too, the rascal) into her own palm, thumbing the two little incisions below her knuckles.

“Nah, I’m fine! It’s bitten me worse than this before.” Shara raises an eyebrow as if to ask what ‘it’ is, but she doesn’t ask so Daria just shrugs her shoulder towards the toolbox, eyes drawn to the letter she moved to her other hand. “What’s that?” Asking about it seems to startle her back into whatever was on her mind when she knocked on the door and she straightens up and presents it. Written across the front is Daria’s name in neat scripture and a smaller inscription towards the top saying it’s come from Selphia. “It’s for you! I’m sorry, I saw it sticking out of your mailbox, I hope you don’t mind.”

“Ooh, what do you think is in it?! Do you think she finally sent me those ores I was asking about?!”

“Daria I don’t think those would fit in an envelope this small - ”

“Oh, it’s just a letter again . . .”

Shara tilts her head to take a quick look of the contents before leaning back again. “That’s very nice calligraphy. I didn’t know you had a sister!” She clasps her hands together with a joyous expression on her face and Daria has to take a moment to process before realizing Shara must be thinking of her own younger sibling. “We send each other letters every now and again. I left the northern forest first to become a world renown artist **_rainbow_** extraordinaire, genius of her trade! And Meggy wanted to explore the world, but she got scouted for her singing. She’s living in some town called Selphia now.”

“Oh, I heard of that place! Raven says she visits there frequently to peddle Sakuya’s wares. She says there’s a lot of people!” Her guest smiles fondly like she’s thought of a sweet memory and holds the flowers to her chest. “Well, I’ll go plant these outside around your statue and give you some privacy. Have a nice day!” She gives a small wave and steps outside, Daria can hear her humming through the wall as she works the flowers into the ground. Left alone with the letter, Daria does the only thing she could possibly do and she reads it.

 

* * *

  _Dear sister,_

_How have you been? It’s been a while since we last exchanged letters like this. That’s mostly my fault, I have been rather busy lately with customers and things going on about town. A lot has happened since we last talked and I would like to fill you in but there is something else I must ask your advice for. It’s caused me a lot of trouble and heartache recently and I was hoping you might have some guidance, any guidance as how to approach it._

_I am close friends with someone here in Selphia and recently I have begun to experience feelings I have not with anyone else before. My heart starts racing and I just get so flustered, it’s not like me. This is the first time I’ve ever felt so embarrassed to write a song for someone. I often feel a strong urge to tease_ ~~_her_~~ _them. I don’t understand what’s wrong with me. Is it perhaps a unique feeling of friendship or of love? I don’t want to be in love, because I am torn thinking about the two of us because one day I will outlive_ ~~_her_~~ _them. I sent you this in the hopes you might have some insight into what it is I’m feeling._

_That being said, I do remember your request for some special ore here, and I will have to speak to one of my friends about getting some to send to you. Expect to hear from me again soon, perhaps by way of package._

_Your loving younger sister,_

_Meg_

* * *

 

And after reading all of it, Daria feels perhaps the most bewildered she has ever felt before. While it’s very obvious Meggy seems to be in love, Daria hasn’t the faintest idea why she would ask her sister of all people for _love advice_ (she also can’t fathom as to why Meggy would go out of her way to make her ‘friend’ gender neutral when the crossed out words are still obviously visible) _._ As the older sibling she’s always been sort of a figure to look up to but she’s not exactly the most . . . well versed in this topic. And, well, clueless she may be, she can’t let down her baby sister. So she folds it back in half, neatly pressing it inside the envelope smelling like fruit, tucks it inside her hat, and heads up towards the Sharance tree.

“Gooooooood _morning_ ! Is my lovely assistant here!?” She doesn’t bother knocking on the door before she barges in, Micah is always up and awake before she is, usually gathering up his kids in a nice little row and feeding them like he does with his tamed monsters. It never fails to be hilarious to watch them all gathering around him and yelling with food in their mouths about this and that. He’s standing near the frying pan today, cooking something that smells _delightful_ , while his kids sit on the three stools around the dining table tossing a rubber ball among one another. “Auntie Daria!” Ray is the first up and sprinting towards her, but the other two follow shortly thereafter, on significantly more wobbly legs. They used to look a lot more like Micah but when summer came Ray and Lala got significantly more tan, and Leaf’s hair seems to be taking on a more green shade reminiscent of his mother. “Hello, my dear little helpers! Is your good-for-nothing daddy starving you?!”

They all start yelling almost simultaneously, Ray almost twice as loud as his siblings about how he’s going to _die_ if he doesn’t eat, Leaf starts crying, and then Lala says “what does good-for-nothing mean?” and turns to her father inquisitively. “It seems like you have a lot of friends.” And the face that Micah gives her almost has her squealing with laughter. He sighs deeply, rubbing his temples as he flips whatever’s in his pan. “Daria, please stop trying to turn my kids against me so you can recruit them to help with your art projects.” Lala immediately trots over to him when he calls, dumping fried eggs and veggies on all 3 of their plates (the latter of which immediately causes Ray to grimace). Micah makes a gesture towards her to follow him upstairs as his kids begin to, rather loudly, chew their food, and she gleefully follows if only to avoid the sound.

“Do you need something?” he asks it almost immediately after they’re out of earshot.

“I can’t visit my beloved assistant?! Oh, the agony, the tragedy, the - ”

Micah cuts off her dramatic tirade before she really even gets into it with a, “You _can._ It’s just that you usually don’t come to visit this early. It’s like 8 AM. You normally come around at about 10, when the kids are done eating and out and about playing with Monica. _Sometimes_ when I’m not even home, and yes I notice because you eat the sardines in my fridge please stop doing that - ”

“Well, who else will eat them!”

“For one, Carmen loves fish so of course she would eat them. The kids like fish too, as do I, the sardines are not in danger of wilting away in our fridge. What do you even do in here anyway?”

Daria makes a dramatic show of throwing her hands up, putting on a rather exaggerated expression of absolute delight. “I’m ever so glad you asked! You see, your house is incredibly boring, so I’ve been thinking up some schematics to _redesign_ some things. You’ve already shot down my request to paint your mailbox and the tree because you’re ever so **BORING**! However, I’ve since thought to paint your barns and the storage box, and wouldn’t a rainbow forge just be absolutely stunning to work at! Think of all the nights you spend slaving away at a drab black forge and instead imagine this: the rainbow colours glistening in the moonlight coming from the window as you work!” She makes a show of gliding her hand in the air as a demonstration. “You don’t have to say anything, I know how beautiful and artistic it is! It’s a stroke of pure inspiration and genius! RAINBOW!”

“I . . . isn’t me buying your paintings and supporting your art enough? Do you really have to paint my things?” She doesn’t respond because the answer to the question is rather obvious and soon enough Micah breaks eye contact to sigh and give her an exasperated smile. “Alright. But _only_ the barns and the storage box, not the forge.” He looks back up to see her opening her mouth to argue but quickly cuts her off with a raised hand. “No ifs, ands, or buts. Anyways, back to the original topic. Did you need something?”

Honestly, she’d almost forgot once he mentioned her frequent trips to the Sharance tree, so preoccupied by the thought of painting that she neglected to bring up her original intent. “Yes! This morning I received a letter from my sister and while I normally wouldn’t ask other people for advice, this time she asked me about love! While I appreciate her asking me for advice, there isn’t anyone I love like Nako and Flame Boy! So I came to ask you if you had any answers. Because you’re married!”

“Well, if she’s having trouble I - ”

And just when he starts to answer, that’s when everything goes insane.

“Waaaa **aaaa** **_aaaahhhhh!!!!!_ ** ”

“Look what you did, now Lala’s crying!”

“W-Why?! I didn’t do anything! W-Waa _aaah!_ ”

All 3 of the kids start sobbing and Micah wastes no time bolting down the steps, Daria close behind. The sight that greets them, however, is an . . . interesting one. While all 3 of them are crying and wailing with tears and snot running down their face, none of them appear to be injured. Lala’s _inconsolable_ , crying into her dad’s chest about something Ray said about Micah leaving (for the day, but she apparently did not interpret it that way). Ray’s crying because Leaf was yelling at him, and Leaf is crying because the other two are. But more than that their food is absolutely everywhere on the table, and that tablecloth will definitely need a wash.

“I’m sorry, Daria, I have to deal with this first. Why don’t you go talk to Carmen about it? She’s working at the resort today so she should be easy to find,” he starts gathering up the kids in his arms, dropping them all on the bed while they bawl their hearts out, and gets to work gathering up the kitchenware and the cloth to clean in the riverstream downstairs. She waves even though he’s not looking and leaves quietly to let him deal with . . . that. She’s glad her and Meggy were never that dramatic with their fights, their parents wouldn’t have lasted.

Micah was right, Carmen is easy to find. She’s there behind the counter again, leaning on it with her head in her hands. “Welcome to Carlos’ Resort, where you can catch yourself plenty of rare fish! Oh, hey Daria. Want some more rainbow trout?” Daria waves her hand dismissively, bouncing, skipping almost, up to Carmen before fishing the letter out of her hat. “Not today! I wanted to ask Micah a question, but he’s dealing with some artistic circumstances, so he told me to come to my favourite model instead,” she finishes by sliding the letter across the table in between Carmen’s resting elbows (Carmen’s face flushes a bit at the model title, Daria painted a portrait of her when she was pregnant with Ray, of which is now proudly displayed in their living room). “My sister sent me a letter! She’s asking for love advice but I, as a single genius artist extraordinaire, have no answers for her.” Carmen definitely looks curious by the look on her face, but she doesn’t say anything before opening the envelope and reading it. It’s an odd feeling to watch Carmen’s face redden halfway through the letter, and then clear her throat and compose herself when she folds it back over again.

“What . . . what did you want to ask? Do you not know how to answer?” Daria nods rather vigorously. “Well, I . . . obviously she’s in love with her friend. It sounds like she’s worried about outliving her friend? Like she wants you to clarify for her what she’s feeling and give her advice for the future. And that, uh, she’s oblivious, or that she’s trying not to notice she has feelings. You know, I did the same thing with Micah - ” and then Daria watches her cut herself off and then slowly turn extremely pink as she’s replaying embarrassing memories in her head. “You know, maybe . . . maybe you should ask Carlos instead. He’s got a lot of experience dating people so he might, uh, have some answers . . . ” She stops talking and covers her face with her hands, quietly berating herself.

So Daria puts the letter back in her hat and heads off to find Carlos.

She doesn’t have any idea where to go because Carmen was sort of useless at the end there after mentioning Micah, so the first thing she does is head towards any large body of water and hope for the best. When she does find him, she’s confused at best, because he’s on one of the little islands in the middle of Privera Forest’s lake and she doesn’t know how he got there because there’s no lily pad next to him so she just shouts from the shorebank. “CARLOOOOOOSSSSSSS! I HAVE SOMETHING TO ASK YOUUUUUUUUU!” After yelling she’s almost of the mind that she might have to swim over to him but he reels in a fish and throws her a thumbs up. He has a small knapsack that’s jumping all over the place that he puts the fish in, throws it over his shoulder, goes to the other end of the little island, and starts running at a ridiculously high pace.

Then he _jumps. To the shore._

If Daria was someone else, if she wasn’t who she is, she might’ve been scared by this act of athletic prowess. But as it is, she starts gushing. “That was the most inspired thing I’ve seen all week! How far up can you jump?! If I climbed on your shoulders and you jumped could we reach the moon?! Could I paint it then!? RAINBOW! Imagine seeing a rainbow moon when you went to bed, it doesn’t get any more marvelous than that!” Carlos preens under the attention, barking with his signature laugh. She’d been a bit surprised at the lack of monsters when she first arrived but with him jumping like that, it’s no surprise they would’ve all run off.

“Ha ha ha! Admiring my hamstrings, are you?! Standing all day fishing gives me strong and powerful legs! I’m sure with enough training I could shoot the both of us all the way to the moon!” He stands at a wider stance to visibly flex the muscles in his legs, putting his knuckles on his hips in a pose reminiscent of a hero. “I bet I could jump that far even with you on my shoulders! I’m just that great, ha ha ha!” And with an offer like that on the table, who is Daria to say no to such a creative activity of bonding and adventure? So she motions for him to kneel and wastes absolutely no time jumping onto his back. As soon as she does, away they go.

Carlos runs at the speed of light.

She’s giggling the whole time, yelling about something or the other but she can’t even hear herself over the rush of air past her ears. He jumps across the river, doesn’t even bother going down the steps and over her rainbow bridge. And while this might normally cause her to take offense, she’s open to other inventive crossing alternatives. After she gets bored of simply running he takes her to one of her sculptures and jumps up until she can reach the top of their heads. With Carlos, why would she ever need to use a ladder again? Trying to paint with such a limited time in the air sounds like a fun idea, she mentally notes to ask him about it later. While they go about hopping and skipping all over the forest he tells her about something called the King Fish living in the lake, which sounds like a delightfully imaginative creature. She tells him if he ever catches it she wants to paint it in all sorts of pretty colours.

And just like that, it’s already past noon.

Carlos lets her down when the first sound of his stomach rumbling echoes through the air. He tells her he has to go back and start making himself dinner (after all, Carmen isn’t there anymore to make dinner for the both of them) and she says “Okay! Have an artistic evening!” but then she realizes, standing alone in the forest underneath one of her statues that she completely forgot to ask him anything about the letter, too whisked away by her own imagination. As the monsters begin to creep back after hiding she thinks, well, tough luck, back at it again tomorrow. But then she thinks, Micah should be free now, right? Carmen should be home. So she picks up her hat (it fell off at some point during all the motions and she hadn’t noticed until now when she needs it) and heads back into town again.

Micah and Carmen are quite visibly canoodling when she walks in, foreheads bumping together as they kiss over their dinner. Their kids are booing all the while, making retching noises as kids do. It’s all a bit intimate so Daria waits outside for a bit instead. She wouldn’t want to interrupt their moment, she already pesters Micah enough already. When they’ve put the kids to bed, she knocks quietly, waiting for the “come in,” from Carmen before she enters. Both of them look a tad bit surprised to see her, usually she doesn’t show up this late, but she’s sure she also looks a bit a mess from how much wind was whipping through her hair. “Daria? What’s up?” Carmen asks first, after pilfering through their closet for her nightgown.

“I know I’ve been at this all day, but I still don’t have anything to reply to my sister with. Carlos did this really artsy thing with his legs and then I just sort of forgot to ask - ” she starts but Micah cuts her off _again_ with his palm outstretched, looking a bit red in the face. Carmen too. She didn’t say anything that bizarre, did she? He simply smiles, looking a bit embarrassed, and directs her outside. They stand on his porch, under the pink spring leaves of the Sharance Tree. “Do you mind if I read this letter?” he says, and she doesn’t waste any time before fishing it out of her hat. He seems to raise an eyebrow at the placement but it’s not like she’s got any pockets. It’s been an ongoing project to make some in her shorts, but altering clothing isn’t really her **thing** , you know? It’s just not quite the same. Leave that to Evelyn. “Daria.”

She snaps to attention when he suddenly calls her name with a much more serious tone than the situation calls for. “Aren’t you making this a bigger deal than it needs to be? You don’t really need anyone else’s advice, do you?” She opens her mouth to object, eyebrows pinched, but Micah keeps going. “Isn’t it just embarrassing for you to think about marriage and love? But that’s not really what your sister wants from you. Read it, what she wants is her big sister’s assurance that everything’s going to be alright. Do you remember what you said to me when you found out I was half monster?”

She doesn’t wait before she nods, crossing her arms across her chest. “Of course I do. I told you nothing’s changed and then I asked for a full scale print! Of which you still haven’t given me, by the way.” He shakes his head fondly before redirecting her attention. “How’s what you said to me any different than what you should be saying to your sister? She’s worried about being a different race than her friend, isn’t she? She doesn’t want my advice, or Carmen’s, or Carlos, she wants _yours._ She wants you to tell her that nothing’s changed and that there’s nothing to be scared of. You get it, don’t you?”

And she does, suddenly, she does get it.

“Thank you, my dear assistant! Once again I owe it to you for your help!” He just stands there, leaning on his left side with a lopsided smile on his face. “Add it to your tab! Your sister’s waiting.” She just nods and waves him goodnight. He’ll still be there tomorrow but Meggy needs her help now. Her house is waiting for her when she gets back, the forest quiet with the sounds of bugs chirping and the wind blowing and rattling against her window. She never mentioned it to anyone, but living in Privera Forest reminds her of the northern forests way back when she still lived there. It comforts her.

She finds parchment paper lying around in one of her scoop shaped chairs, but doesn’t have any pens so she fishes out some paint from the toolbox by her bed (she notices that it doesn’t bite her this time) and a paintbrush laying on one of her easels and she gets right to work.

 

* * *

_For my beloved Meggy,_

_I have been fantastic! Today was exciting, I had an eventful and amazingly artistic day with some of my dear friends and my most prized assistant. I hope that you meet him someday, he is a very good friend to me, and he has helped me many times before, and I hope more so in the future too._

_For a bit, I was lost on how to help you. I am not an experienced person in the realms of friendship and romance. But at the end of the day, I realized some things. And so, this is what I will tell you. You’re in love, and I know that you know. So what if she’s a human and you’re an elf? Everybody has to croak someday, wouldn’t you rather be close with them while you still have the time? You can’t truly be happy with yourself if you hold yourself back because of the little things. If you love them, tell them! With that in mind, I’m going to send you a little secret spell to protect your new lover, so you better not disappoint me! If I don’t hear in your next letter that you’re dating I’ll be very, very, cross with you!_

_I am very much looking forward for this package of ore! Dragonic stone sounds so very artistic, I can already hear the sculptures calling out my name! This ore will be the key to my next big piece, the one that will get me recognized by the greater world! Rainbow! I hope to hear from you soon!_

_From your big sister artist extraordinaire,_

_The Genius and Beautiful Daria_

* * *

 

She flaps the letter back and forth for a couple minutes to let the paint dry before folding it and tying it together with a string of yarn. It might not look like a traditional letter, but she never followed traditions anyway. Deviation was always much more fun. While she wants to send it out as soon as possible, the growing ache in her bones catches up with her in a jaw cracking yawn and the stream of moonlight from her window. Tomorrow will be here soon enough. So she takes off her hat and her boots, strips down to her underclothes, and crawls into her blankets for a good night’s sleep.

Daria wakes up slowly to a warm sun glowing down on her and she doesn’t waste any time before reaching in her toolbox for her hammer. Nothing bites her this time. Today is a new day. She makes a resolve to get it some snacks later today. The parchment letter is waiting at the foot of her bed already, and she snatches it in her hands and heads off to send it away. She spends the rest of her week preparing for her next big project, it doesn’t take long for Meggy’s package to arrive. It’s a **_beautiful_ ** colour, and she doesn’t waste any time chiseling it away into a picture perfect portrait of what she imagines a King Fish would look like. When a week later she gets another letter, stained pink and sticky and smelling vaguely like fruit (like someone got flustered and spilled jam all over the paper), the fond smile on her face is something she could only attribute to her love for her sister.


	3. One Summer's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Amber experiences a series of summers, most of the time with Clorica.

**One summer's day.**

 

It’s only been a couple of months since she’s woken up, everything different from how it used to be, like it changed and made something new of itself around the cocoon she was resting in all these years. And even more so, there’s something else. Something she’s forgotten. Almost immediately she decides not to dwell on it, but every time she sees a feather, everytime she looks in the sky, she feels something aching, wishing, wanting.

Nothing she should dwell on.

Spring comes and goes, it has always felt so fleeting and short, just like it did all those years ago. The flowers bloom, the air and the wind pick up and leave dandelion puffs in her hair. And just like that, it’s summer again. The lake was here before, along with the mansion across the way, looming but somehow friendly in the sunlight. They open the lake for swimming on the first day of summer, a tradition she remembers. Lumie takes her there that first week of summer, splashes her with the sun warm water, swims as elegantly as the fish that scramble to get away. Amber builds terrible sand castles that fall apart as soon as she looks away.

She finds Clorica almost every time she visits the lake, dozing off under the shade of a tree. Sometimes she’s in her bathing suit, dripping water on the grass, curled up for an aprés swimming nap. As far as Amber can tell, whether she’s in uniform or not is completely random. She always sleeps with her legs straight out, hands in her lap, head lolled over on her shoulder. It’s cute in a funny way. She always has to talk Lumie out of pranking her, instead waking her up to join them. Clorica never refuses, blinking the sleep out of her eyes and smiling.

 

**One summer’s day.**

 

The sky in the summer is a brilliant blue, sparkling and hazy like a fading dream. When the wind picks up and catches the leaves, Amber spreads out and flaps her wings in the hopes the breeze will carry her away into that dazzling sky. Flying with the birds, heated by the sun, heading to some distant land with flowers as brilliant as she remembers. But her wings are small and frail, and the wind can only lift her high enough that her feet barely leave the ground. There is always someone to catch her. Sometimes it’s Lumie, sometimes Lest, Forte, Doug. Sometimes it’s Clorica, and she abruptly wakes up once Amber’s body hits her chest.

Swimming is fun but the water always catches on her paper thin wings, makes her lethargic and slow, head bobbing under the water as she tries to fly in the one place she can’t. Most of the time she stands on the shore with her arms spread and her toes in the sand, eyes closed to the blinding light with a content smile on her face. Clorica asks her once, “Amber, why do you want to fly away, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Why do you want to swim?” she asks (instead of answering).

Clorica puts a finger to her chin in thought, tilting her head, the weight of the water dripping off her hair undoing one of her braids into curly tendrils. “I think because it’s fun. And when it’s hot, like today, it’s a good way to cool off.”

“The sea is just a wetter version of the sky! Or in this case, the lake,” Amber proclaims, and Clorica bursts into giggles, prompting Doug to come check what’s going on. She’s laughing too hard to breathe, let alone explain.

 

**One summer’s day.**

 

Before the end of that first year, Dylas moves into town. She can’t place why, but looking into his eyes swimming with anxiety, his whole face turning a shy red, she feels something like camaraderie. Something familiar. Like they’ve met someplace before, like they have something in common but she can’t place what it is yet. The spring of next year, Dolce moves into town. She’s come from that mansion across the lake, old and dusty and warm, smelling like apple cider. When Amber looks at her, she gets that same muted feeling of companionship, like the three of them are tied inseparably together. And yet, there’s still some blank space between the three of them, two blank spaces to be specific. Some kind of puzzle she can’t figure out.

So she just stops thinking about it.

She’s grown closer to Clorica, tailing behind her and watching as she slips into a dream in the middle of cooking, completely unbeknownst to her surroundings, yet just as talented as before, if not more so. Amber grows addicted to her apple pies, stealing pieces while Clorica’s eyes are closed, only to feel bad about it later, and leave flowers in her big poofy pants pockets. She always has a puzzled look on her face when she finds them, pressing them to her face as if smelling them will somehow provide her answers. “Maybe I have a secret admirer,” she’ll say, eyes twinkling like the fireflies at night and Amber giggles and says, “Yeah!” and asks her if she could make another pie . . . maybe with some smoothies this time. Clorica tells her it’s too much fruit to eat in one sitting, but she makes it anyway, and they eat it on a blanket on the beach.

 

**One summer’s eve.**

 

Meg organizes a slumber party. At 9 o’clock, when the fireflies are out and land on the tips of the fingers and swarm her like small friends, that’s when she should put on her pajamas and march down to Meg’s house, only a short walk from her own. Her nightgown is breezy and airy, when she steps outside the wind ruffles the bottom frill of her dress and caresses her legs and arms, leaving her skin cool and dry. Clorica is already there, along with Forte and Xiao Pai, they’re sitting in a little circle with Meg standing at the door to let her in. “Glad you could make it!” she says, and pulls Amber into a comforting, warm hug. She’s tall, Amber has to stand on her tippy toes to even reach her shoulders, but her hugs are soft and nice, and when Meg lets her go she mourns the loss of that reassurance. “Take a seat! The others should be here soon.” Her face splits into a wide beam, blue eyes glowing with happiness.

Amber ends up between Clorica and Forte, sitting on the blanket and the pillow she stripped off her bed before she left. Clorica tells them a “horror” story (horror in quotations because it’s not scary whatsoever) about a man with amnesia, Forte screeches and clings to Amber’s arm the whole time, like this small waif of a girl could protect a knight. Her long straw blonde hair tickles the back of Amber’s neck, leaving a smell like strawberry shortcake in its wake. Meg tells them about a song she’s composing, a love song, and everybody is immediately and suddenly pressing closer like a shark chasing blood in the water. Everyone except her and Forte (still holding her arm), completely clueless to the subject at hand. Forte eventually notices she’s still clinging and lets go with a litany of apologies, her face bright red like the tomatoes Lumie picks from their garden. Meg laughs at her, her face a dusty pink; she raps her arm and Amber abruptly realizes she was probably writing that song for her (and not for Lest, which was the common conclusion).

She, Clorica, and Meg are the last ones awake.

This surprises Amber for obvious reasons, so she asks. Clorica says, “I can’t sleep after telling a scary story,” and the laugh that bubbles out of her is almost loud enough that she wakes up everybody else, tiny form shaking with the force of it. Meg smiles, presses a delicate hand to her mouth as if to hide it, murmuring, “we should probably go to bed,” and Amber would agree but she’s too busy suppressing her uncontrollable giggles. Clorica still has a pout on her face when she finally falls asleep, her eyes drooping as she watches Amber snicker.

 

**One summer’s afternoon.**

 

After long days at the beach she ends up at the bathhouse, sand sticking to her like a second skin, sea salt in her hair and on her tongue when she goes under and accidentally swallows a mouthful. She visits right before dinnertime, washing off the grime, and letting the warm water and the mist flow through her and awaken the hunger in her belly. And then after dinner she collapses into clean sheets, smelling like fancy soaps and lotions that feel just like a second home now. When she gets there Clorica is already settled into the bath, just her nose and eyes visible from above the water, breathing little bubbles with her eyes closed and slipping just a little below only waking up when her nose is suddenly submerged. Xiao Pai is there mopping behind the plants, staring wistfully outside at the setting sky. Dolce is at the cubby folding her clothes meticulously into the box, Pico a shimmering figure by her side, yelling something or other about how “saucy” she is until Dolce smacks a hand through her semi corporeal body.

She bounds in with only half her normal energy, her wings soaked and heavy with both water and sand, her whole body scratchy with the coarse bits chafing her skin. She almost cannonballs into the water but is stopped by a frantic Xiao Pai, yelling about her own misfortune mopping up until 11 at night and Amber waves a hand in surrender, stepping into the water like a normal person. She’s never seen Dolce look so relieved, her hair creating waves around her body like the paintings they make of mermaids. “You look like a mermaid,” she says and Dolce’s face is instantly aflame. Pico makes a face like there’s something smelly in the room before crossing her arms, her little legs dangling into the water but not moving it.

“Oh, Amber . . .” Clorica murmurs, blinking one eye and then the other, her head slowly emerging from beneath the steam. “When did you get here?” she asks, tilting her head, before spotting Dolce and tilting it the other way. “When did the both of you get here?” Dolce simply smiles and rolls her eyes, Amber laughs, splashes Clorica with a finely aimed hand squeeze of water directly to her face. Then her eyes suddenly open all the way, the shock of the force pulling her from the drowsy mist settling over her brain. “Oh!” she says, blinking abruptly, as the water rivulets travel down her hair and drip off her eyelashes. “Amber, could you help me wash my back?” (Amber, of course, says yes).

She pours a generous glob in her hands, rubbing it together until the soap overtakes her hands entirely. Xiao Pai lingers nervously, like Amber is going to create a catastrophe of bubbles, and while she  _ is  _ tempted, she doesn’t. All she does is rub those bubbles across the plane of Clorica’s neck and shoulders, leaving bubbles popping across the skin. “Do you need somebody to wash your back?” Clorica says to Dolce, and Dolce nods her head no, looking terribly embarrassed and maybe a tad overheated. When Clorica washes her own, Dolce has already left, Xiao Pai leaving her trust in Amber not to destroy the bath while she tends the counter (a mistake). Her hands trail across the plane of her back and Amber laughs, ticklish in the fleeting feeling. Clorica laughs, pours more soap, and they end up leaving the room a mess of bubbles anyway. Amber can hear Xiao Pai’s “oh no!” when she’s already outside and dressed, linked arms with Clorica as they head home for the day.

 

**One summer’s day.**

 

They visit the beach often on the holidays, or rather, Clorica visits and Amber follows. The whole week has been humid, leaving a sweat mark the size of her body in her bed when she wakes up. When they get there and Amber takes a seat on the sand, the granules digging into her, her mouth dries up at the thought of the fruit in her bag. She bites into the orange she plucked from a tree in the forest. Clorica watches her from the shimmering blue of the lake, slapping the surface of the water with her hands to make it splash. “You’re like a vampire,” she says, swinging her hips and gesturing to Amber’s incisors deep into the flesh of the fruit. Once it’s drained to nothing more than a husk of tasteless skin she tosses the scraps in her knapsack to add to her compost pile. “Don’t vampires burn in the sun?” she says, spreading out her scrawny but uncharred arms towards the light. “That sounds so sad, not being able to go in the sun.”

Clorica wrings her hair as she ponders, fingers combing through the curls. “They get to live forever, though, eternal beauty, they’re so fast they wouldn’t need to worry about falling asleep, super strength, to name only a few . . .”

“I don’t want to live forever. It’s lonely,” she says, her face blank and distant. “And vampires  _ can’t  _ sleep! That’s terrible! Dreaming is so fun, imagine if you couldn’t dream anymore!”

Clorica hums like she’s considering it but has already made up her mind. “I’ve been asleep half my life, and every time I dream, I wouldn’t mind being awake for the rest of it. Maybe I’d learn something!” She laughs, something melodic and soft.

Amber rests her head on one palm, wiggling her toes in the water that laps up to the shore to cover them. “If I couldn’t dream, I wouldn’t see my old friends anymore,” she says it softly, looking at the trees. “They would’ve loved you!” She beams, looking back up to a stunned Clorica, smile stuck to her face but giggles stopped in her throat, eyes wild and unblinking. Expression becoming something thoughtful, comforting, her eyes hood and her lips stretch into a gentle closed mouth smile. “I would’ve loved to meet them,” she says.

 

**One summer’s eve.**

 

Sometimes she finds herself at the entrance to the lake, crouching in front of the seedling she planted. They planted it out of season a year ago, so it’s never grown into anything beyond a frail little leaf, but she likes to watch over it anyway. Just in case. She can’t even remember what it is they planted, but maybe it’s a summer flower. That’s just the feeling she gets.

That night, she dreams.

On a dark and blue landscape, she is on the beach. She turns around, and the sapling was neither a flower nor a crop. It is a long, long vine, splitting the ground and trailing into the sky, past the clouds into some great beyond unknown to her. She approaches it without any worry, running her hand up the side of it like she can hear a heart beating inside. And she starts to climb. Amber isn’t scared of heights, or of falling, her wings will catch her on the clouds, and float her down to the ground. But she knows she has to reach the top, it’s imperative that she does, a matter of life and death. Well, maybe not that dramatic, but she knows she has to get there. Somebody’s waiting for her and she’s already late.

It feels like centuries before she reaches the top, as long as she’d been asleep in the forest, resting unaware. When she reaches it, the green vine plateaus, leaving ground to step on that extends only 20 feet. The clouds obscure her vision but when she steps forward she smells jam and toast, cakes and pastries, freshly baked cookies. “Amber? Is that you?” she hears, and when the fog finally clears it’s her old friends, sitting on a picnic blanket, smiling and laughing just as she remembers them. They’ve got a feast of sweets set up, dressed in their nicest clothes, the ones they wore when they saw her off, like they’ve been here this whole time waiting for her to wake up. “Look,” one of them says, pointing past her, and she does. Beyond, in the forests on the ground, the grass is alight. The flowers she’s always loved, dreamed of, wished for, giant and growing with love and affection like she’s personally been attending to them in her mind for the day they’d bloom. “We’ve been waiting for you,” one of them says, and she turns back to them, opening her mouth to reply but no words will come out. Behind her is someone else she feels, someone who looks just like her, who walks past her, and sits down with her friends like it’s their own right. Her own face looks at her, a soft smile, eyes hooded, an expression she’s never made before, and says, “see you on a dark night.”

She wakes up in a cold sweat, blankets curled around her legs.

 

**One summer’s day.**

 

A year after Dolce moves into town, the third summer since she woke up, she finds out what those two blank spaces were. She’s standing in front of Venti, with Leon, Dolce, and Dylas, and finally she understands those two blank spaces. That feeling, that sadness, that something was missing. Something was incomplete. And she finally understands. 

 

**One summer’s day.**

 

Summer is her favourite season because the flowers are all in bloom, the weather is warm, and Yokmir Forest is at its most beautiful. She hasn’t told anybody she goes there because they’d try to stop her. Too small, too frail, can’t defend herself. But nothing there could ever hurt her. Amber is as much a part of the forest as the monsters, the trees, the flowers, and the fish. Amber is a part of Ambrosia. Once Lest beat her, he stopped coming, busy with other things. The forest is her own personal paradise.

It’s pure happenstance Clorica sees her trying to leave town one day. She’s brought a little knapsack full of honey and juice and fruits, and a small little cloth she “borrowed” from Lumie’s linen closet. A picnic for one. The sleepy butler-in-training happens to be sweeping town square, and Amber just didn’t walk fast enough. “What are you doing?” She jogs up to her with polite worry in the crease of her eyebrows. “Are you leaving town?”

Amber has never been good at lying.

After a  _ thorough  _ explanation, they are sitting together in the forest clearing on Amber’s blanket for one. Clorica doesn’t quite believe her until the butterflies show up one by one to land in her hair as if by greeting. The topics of conversation are easy, light. She’s always found Clorica an easy person to talk to, conversational, polite, and (most importantly) physically affectionate. Meg, her, and Xiao Pai have always been pretty good about it but Forte and Dolce took some 

. . . coaxing. Speaking of Forte, before leaving Amber  _ begged  _ Clorica not to tell the knight (“please, please,  _ please _ ”) about these excursions, because if she did, going alone would be out of the question.

They make it a tradition.

Whenever both of them have an hour free that summer, they visit Yokmir Forest. Amber tells her about the blooming flowers, the round rocks underneath the waterfall, the monsters shedding their skin to start anew. Clorica tells her about the happenings around the castle, how she’s Getting It Together since their meetup, and about . . . wanting a boyfriend. Today, she’s sighing with her head in one palm, mumbling something about Jones and Nancy. The first time this was brought up, Amber looked at her like  _ she  _ had grown antennae. Even now it’s still befuddling. “I just want somebody to hold my hand,” she says. Amber, of course, says, “Why would you need a boyfriend for that? I could hold your hand.” She grabs her hand for demonstration, the touch warm and a little moist, like she got sweaty nervous just from the thought of it. Clorica giggles, swinging their joined hands. “Of course you can, that wasn’t very clear of me. I want somebody to tell me that they love me, like Jones and Nancy.”

“I love you,” says Amber.

“I love you too,” says Clorica, mouth wide on a smile.

“See? You don’t need a boyfriend,” she says, scooting closer to lean on their joined arms. “I can be whatever you want.” Clorica looks at her for a moment, like she’s unsure of what to make of the statement but lets her body sag in the warm sunlight, mumbling a soft “thank you,” before they both fall asleep.

 

**One summer’s afternoon.**

 

Clorica visits the shop sometimes, usually she doesn’t buy anything, offering the lingering of her company. They play guessing games, talk about the upcoming festival, chat about their friends, about everything happening in town and around it. It’s been a rough winter and spring at war with the Sechs, and everybody who doesn’t fight has been scrambling to keep up appearances, some semblance of normality. The festivals don’t cancel, the meetings aren’t postponed, they won’t let him win and be silenced. So they go about their days.

Lumie is out today, busy on “detective business”, so Amber is running the shop. Clorica sighs suddenly, her fingers skimming over the soft petals of a potted plant, and Amber’s eyes are drawn to the pollen that seeps out from the middle. Her cheeks puff in a pout, almost tugging a petal off as she loses herself in her thoughts, but halts at the last minute. “I wish things were normal again,” she says, crossing her arms in a show of frustration. Amber moves her head up from where it was resting on her palm, seeking out Clorica’s eyes. “Don’t hold in sadness,” she says. “Cry if you need to.” And Clorica does, her quiet tears dripping onto the petals of the flower pot her hands are gently grasped around.

 

**One summer’s afternoon.**

 

The day they win, they have a huge celebration. Porcoline cooks up a feast, with Dylas, Blossom, and Clorica’s help. They make pies, and stuffed fish, and egg dishes, udon, fried noodles, curry, pastries. It’s a packed house. Clorica sits across from Amber second from the left, Vishnal and Lumie at the end seats, Lest with Xiao Pai, Dolce and Pico across from Kiel who’s next to Forte, blushing at Meg reaching across the table to feed her cake with a fork. Everyone else is at the other table, Dylas and Doug flinging food at each other, Blossom chuckling into her bowl of soup, Leon and Arthur having a sophisticated conversation despite the setting. It’s loud but it’s joyful, everyone laughing and hugging and eating. It’s everything Amber’s always wanted, the people she loves to be happy and pleased and safe _.  _ And she’s happy. Because she’s surrounded by people she loves, and those people are happy, and her friend and hero is still alive and well. So she laughs and she lets Clorica feed her apple pie with an “ahhh,” and does the same in return and they giggle and laugh and clasp their hands over the table. Lest leaves in the middle of dinner, brighter than she’s seen him in at least a year, if not more, kissing Xiao Pai’s cheek before he slips out the door.

He comes back later, when the sky starts to twinkle with stars, and everyone’s winding down to a comfortable lull, stomachs full and hearts soaring. He has an expression on his face that makes Amber’s heart twinge, an expression of resignation, of grief, of remorse. She’s still holding Clorica’s hands, grasped over the table, but the smile instantly falls off her face. Clorica leans forward to ask what’s wrong, entirely oblivious to Lest’s sulking image by the door, reluctant to come in. When Amber catches his eyes, he looks away, something shimmering in his eyes, moist and damp and raw.

Something’s happened.

 

**One summer’s eve.**

 

It’s been storming violently all week, thunder that cracks the sky, and water that soaks so thoroughly you’ll catch a cold in the middle of summer. Typhoons come and go, taking bits and pieces of the town with them, small crackling bits of the buildings. Stripping them base by base. It’s been two weeks since she found out Venti’s returned to the Forest of Beginnings, and it hasn’t gotten any better. Lumie’s been crawling into her bed at night because she’ll hear Amber whining in her sleep, tossing and turning, and then she’ll sing lullabies and stroke her green hair until she passes out again. 

She opens her eyes on the beach of the lake. It’s twilight, everything is dark yet still visible, twinkling, sparkling. Clorica is in the lake in front of her, smiling, wearing her swimsuit. When one of her braids dips into the water Amber expects it to be wet, but when it pulls up it is just as dry as before, floating atop the lake like it’s buoyant. “Come in,” she says. Her eyes twinkle like she knows something secretive, lips curled into a playful smile. “Come join me,” she says, and opens her arms for Amber to cast herself into. So she does. As soon as both of her legs are in the water she falls straight through.

Turning upside down she looks up, eyes open, at the murky blue of the water. There’s no fish around, or Clorica, and she knows somehow she doesn’t need to breathe. Her whole body turns over once more and she hits the ground with her legs straight out in a sitting position. The ground is smooth and dry and she knows this isn’t  _ really _ the lake, but it feels like home anyway. There’s another person sitting across from her, legs tucked under them. And it’s her. “Hello,” the person who looks like her says. “I am she from the forest.”

“Ambrosia,” says Amber. “That’s your name. Isn’t it?”

She from the forest smiles, in a mysterious way Amber has never seen or felt on her face before. “You can call me whatever you like. Names do not matter to me anymore.” 

“It’s nice to see you,” Amber says, grinning despite the grief. “Are you lonely?”

Ambrosia shakes her head, the water carrying her hair to fan dramatically around her face. “No. Thank you,” she says, and even though they share the same body, Ambrosia speaks deeper, like she’s pulling strings deep within Amber’s body that she didn’t know existed. “Are you leaving?” she says, tilting her head with no change of expression.

Amber leans back on her hands, closing her eyes to the water ruffling her eyelashes. “I want to fly with Venti in the skies,” she whispers, and when she opens her eyes it’s to the sunlight.

 

**One summer’s day.**

 

She sees Clorica in town that morning, and flings herself into Clorica’s arms, but the ground doesn’t turn upside down, and Amber doesn’t fall under water she can breathe in. Clorica smells like apples, vanilla and lavender, and her arms are warm and soft. “What’s wrong?” she says, and Amber says, “Nothing at all.” She stretches on her tippy toes and kisses Clorica’s forehead, fingers caught in her hair for only a moment before she pulls away in a twirl.

All day she goes around the town showering her friends in affection, hugging Forte and Dolce, letting Meg pet her head, tackling Xiao Pai, surprising Lest in a hug from behind, she even gives Doug a hug when she runs into him by accident, and when she reaches home she bounds over to Lumie in a bone crushing hug. Lumie has to tap her to let go, she can’t breathe, but when she does her face is split in a smile wider than anything Amber’s ever seen on her. “What’s the occasion?” she says, and Amber says, “Nothing at all.”

 

**One summer’s afternoon.**

 

Even though summer is the most beautiful season, this summer even Yokmir Forest feels different. The trees aren’t as green, the flowers aren’t as large, the creatures hide in the bushes instead of coming out to meet her. She’s sitting on the cliff, feet dangling off the edge, letting the gusts of wind brush over her. The sky has melded into a mix of oranges, reds, and yellows over the horizon, leaving the hills awash with warm colours. When she stands up on that edge the wind almost knocks her straight over into the cave below, but that won’t do. That won’t do at all. She spreads out her arms, closing her eyes to the light, and she starts to flap her wings. The air pushes her up, lifting her feet until just the tips of her shoes touch the grassy cliff.

Suddenly she’s overcome by that breeze, melding with the setting sun. Comfort and realization settles over her and she’s calm, she’s happy, she’s ready. Her feet lift off the ground, her wings carry her off to somewhere new, and then -

“ _ I won’t let you fly away! _ ”

She’s forcibly pulled backwards, her wrist grabbed and yanked on, and she goes tumbling into warm arms and the scent of apples and vanilla and lavender. Clorica grabs her face, running her palms up and down it and Amber just smiles, “I’m fine,” but she doesn’t believe her anyway. “You can’t fly, you’ll fall, your wings won’t carry you the whole way,” she says, her face twisted into something sorrowful. “Amber what was it you said it to me? Don’t hold in sadness. You can cry when you need to. Venti is gone, she’s  _ gone  _ Amber. You can mourn.”

And just like that she does. She cries, and cries, and cries. After so long wondering what those blank spaces were, now there’s a hole where one once was. After going into a long sleep to protect her, those sacrifices and that work, but it’s all amounted to only four more years with her. Nothing left of her old world, nothing at all but the shimmering lake in Selphia.

 

**One summer’s day.**

 

The day Lest brings Venti back Amber cries for an entirely different reason. She shows up at the castle, grin on the face, smile ready. But as soon as Venti looks up she crumples into tears, stumbling over to pull her long scaled neck into a hug. Her bigger, feathered wings come to surround her, and Amber cries and cries and says “you’re so dumb,” at least twice. She finally gets to do it, just like she wanted, to soar with Venti in the sky, though it’s not how she planned. Her wings really won’t carry her high enough, so she has to hitch a ride. They soar over Yokmir, over the planes, around Leon’s tower, all the way to the Sechs empire and back. It’s sweltering outside, but with how high up they are, Amber can barely feel it.

By the time they’re back Amber is giddy with happiness, with delight, and she steps back to let Dolce and Pico waiting there to shower Venti with love and admonishments. Amber has a date.

 

**One summer’s eve.**

 

They meet at the observatory at 8 o’clock. Amber wanted to make s’mores but they don’t have any source of fire (or anywhere anyone would let Amber set something on fire), Clorica ends up bringing them a freshly steamed lobster for herself, and a jam roll for Amber from the restaurant, with some napkins. Amber brings that same linen she’s used so much Lumie just decided it was hers now. They have to bunch it up a little to make sitting on the creaky boards a little more comfortable, but Amber doesn’t mind so much. The stars are bright, brighter than they’ve been in awhile, glimmering in the sky. Clorica points out some constellations in between her meal, licking her fingers clean from any stray pieces of meat. Amber is and always has been a messy eater, leaving jam around her mouth and crumbs in her hair. It took enough convincing to get Clorica to buy her fruit for dinner.

“Are you sure you’re okay with me?” Clorica says suddenly, looking at her when Amber was lost in thought. She reaches forward, swiping a piece of jam off of Amber’s cheek to wipe on her napkin. “Someday I might miss something by accident . . .”

Amber’s expression is blank for a moment, big eyes blinking as if she’s thinking before her face breaks into a wide smile. “If I could pick and choose, I would choose you. You’ve always been there for me, and I wanna be there for you,” she says, and swipes some jam from her roll onto her thumb, promptly smearing it on Clorica’s cheek. She looks confused for a moment until Amber kisses her cheek, taking the jam with it. Clorica laughs, so Amber kisses her lips instead.


End file.
